Something just occurred to me - your MC has a similar problem that Bruce Banner/The Hulk has. When angered, Banner becomes the Hulk, but doesn't have the capacity to calm himself therefore is stuck till things settle down. Maybe when a giant, it just takes time till the MC is in a nice, calm place emotionally and starts thinking just a little. Soon things are feeding back on themselves and he's back to his prefered self. A couple questions: How long does the change take? Does the smart self lose any memory/skills, or is everything there in the giant self, but not expressed? -Frank
Good point. It really depends on how the MC use's each side. e.g I donno, his arm gets ripped off. The would reqire alot from the giant side, therefore he would imediately start to change.
It goes back a little before Tolkein -- the word appears in Beowulf (some time around the 8th-11th century CE). It's from an earlier word meaning "demon", and in Beowulf it means "ogre". Tolkein fleshed them out, so to speak, and invented the creatures we now think of as orcs.